The phrase ‘just when you think it can’t get any worse’ springs to mind, Pompey were nothing short of awful last night, no cohesion, no passion, nothing.
Hogg came into midfield in place of Ward who dropped back to defence, Dickinson gave way in the only change of personnel, the nformation was a bit different mind, Nugent wide on the left with Utaka more of a centre forward.
Burnley came into the game with one away win this season, what better place to come for another win than Pompey? Goals are gift wrapped, normally at least two to be getting on with, always a few chance will be teed up by those cheery boys in blue.
The first half was proper turgid for half an hour, Pompey were poor, Burnley little better, then in comes a cross from the left and Pompey’s defence were found wanting yet again, Fox delivered and Rodriguez probably had enough time to have bought a Bovril as well as he steered home, another defensive shocker in a season full of them.
Pompey did respond immeadiately though, Kanu shimmied and slid in Utaka who curled in for his second in 2 games, a right old hot streak for him.
Pompey being Pompey though did the same as against Leeds, conceeding almost within almost the same 2 minutes, this time Halford decided to play Santa, a straight forward clearance was instead turned into a tee up, in came the volley and Ashdown did really well to save, the ball though looped up and Marney steered an overhead kick into the bottom corner, Samaritans miust surely be on speed dial in the manager’s office.
Half time came and all the talk was about how we going to get back into the game and even take the lead, after all we are always better second half, aren’t we?
The answer to that was soon clear, Pompey still couldn’t pass to each other and the game was almost up, Sonko was starting to get it in the neck from large portions of the crowd as each time he touched the ball he either sliced it out or overhit his balls forward, the game was really looking up now, confidence is very low, that is clear, the lack of options in the squad is also clear, when kanu succumbed to fatigue, on came Dickinson, this was met with detriment once again, cries of ‘why take off a striker for a defender?’ went up, although to most it was obvious that Dickinson would not play up front!
De Laet faired little better on the left wing, Hogg was having trouble imposing himself on his debut, although you have to feel for him as he has walked straight into a team flat on its arse.
Pompey threatened twice in the second half with any real threat, Utaka ended a mazy run by slicing horribly wide, then Nugent showed the difference between a class striker, and that of a championship striker, as he closed in on the ‘keeper, the ‘keeper fell to block a low shot, class strikers clip over the horizontal stopper, Nugent squared the ball and the chance was gone.
So Pompey finished another game pointless, the winless streak stretched to 8, the winless steak in front of the long suffering home faithful back to Halloween. Quite apt for the horrors we had witnessed.
Share this article
